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As promised … more from the PaperWork mailbag:
From Karen Werth of Ottawa:
“Always enjoy your articles, but the one you wrote a few weeks ago (July 20) about choosing authors you would like to invite to your dinner table has become quite a conversation starter.
“It started with my husband and I coming up with our own guest list which made us realize we would have to have several dinner parties to include all the authors we had picked.
“We included Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, Arthur Conan Doyle, Pearl S. Buck, Mark Twain, William Kent Kruger, Karen Blixen and David McCullough.
“Then I put your idea out to my book club. We met last Sunday and each member chose an author to help make up our book club list. That included Dee Brown, Ernest Hemingway, Amor Towels, Kristin Hannah, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Barbara Kingsolver, Mother Teresa and Jodi Picoult.
“Then I sent copies to family and friends in Florida and New Mexico and heard back from them with Stephen Ambrose, Agatha Christie, Marjorie Rawlings, Elizabeth Strout and Allison Pataki.
“Last Saturday I ran into a fellow reader and he loved the idea and came up with Harper Lee. Today I ran into Theresa Jones while we were both shopping at Prairie Fox Books and she said she had made copies of your article to give to people and she would want to invite Susan Branch, she also said to say, ‘Hi’ to you in this email.
“... I just wanted you to know that you have started something fun for readers that have taken up your idea and are passing it on.
“I just finished reading the book ‘No Two Persons’ by Erica Bauermeister and I will end this with a quote from the book: ‘No two persons ever read the same book, or saw the same picture.’ (From The Writings of Madame Swetchine, 1860.)”
I had fun writing about how I start may day with coffee, couch and cellphone (Sept. 16), wondering if I should be more aggressive with my day.
Lori McD. replied: “Nah. You’re retired! Do you know how many working people wish they were? Maybe it’s me ... my favorite thing to do, as long as I can remember, has been nothing. Keep the coffee, the couch, the dog. We shall call those things good. As for the rest, do what you want. Or not.”
Renee H. shared this: “Sounds like the ‘work ethic’ blues. I often think about what I’d be doing if I was still living by the bell!!! I feel some guilt. Then I realize I’d be fired by noon if I went back. I wish I could go back, but instead, I just go back to my ‘wake up’ games.”
Finally, from Jim B. of Crystal Lake:
“Regarding your article about ‘The Twilight Zone’ ‘Kick the Can’ episode that you wrote over a week ago (Aug. 24), I greatly enjoyed it.
“After reading your article, I found the episode and watched it. Hey, I’m getting up there ... 74 years of age ... so I can relate to the story. The most emotional lines in the story for me were about magic ... when a person gets old they lose the magic – the magic that they once marveled at in childhood. Falling in love is magical, so is the connection and love you have for your children, and friendship is magical. I think those references are true. They are all beyond full explanation or understanding.”
Thank you to all readers who continue to remind me how easy it is to connect to others over that daily routine we call life.
• Lonny Cain, retired managing editor of The Times in Ottawa, also was a reporter for The Herald-News in Joliet in the 1970s. His PaperWork email is lonnyjcain@gmail.com. Or mail The Times, 110 W. Jefferson St., Ottawa, IL 61350.